Keeping Up Compliance in the New Age of City Posters

June 22, 2015

You may have heard about them. Even if you haven’t, they’re coming to a city (and county) near you.

That’s right, cities and counties across the country are creating their own labor laws, such as increased minimum wage and mandated paid sick leave. A new category of labor law posters is emerging at lightning speed: the city and county poster! From San Francisco, CA, all the way to Trenton, New Jersey, they’re everywhere and if you don’t know anything about them, here’s your chance to find out…

The most important thing you’ll need to know is that the posting requirements are often complicated and specific, meaning this is not something you want to make into an afternoon DIY project, unless you enjoy headaches and long afternoons of confusion.

Let’s take a look at some of the factors that determine which compliance posters you’re required to have:

The number of employees that a business supports

The languages spoken in each specific business

The languages spoken within the city or county itself

So, for example, if your business is located in San Francisco…

This city currently has 5 required labor law posters!

Did you know each notice must be posted in every language spoken by at least 5% of the population of the city?

Given the size and diversity of San Francisco, the posters must be displayed in English, Spanish, Chinese, and Tagalog

The labor law posters need to be updated if any other languages meet the 5% requirement in the future.

Keep in mind, San Francisco labor law posters are not the only ones with requirements. Many current city labor posters must be posted by all employers in languages other than English…

But how do you know which ones?

The frustrating part about many city posting requirements is that they are often difficult to find, and can be written in such a way that it becomes a challenge to know if you are maintaining compliance.

For example, Newark, New Jersey requires that a Paid Sick Time notice not only be posted in conspicuous view, but also must be distributed by hand to each employee as well. Believe it or not, this information is not found on the notice itself, making it extremely difficult to know for sure if your business is maintaining labor law compliance.

Where could you go to learn about this requirement?

For many of the local laws that have recently passed, the only way to find the most accurate information about a labor poster requirement is to locate the law itself online and attempt to understand what the literal posting requirements are.

As you can imagine, locating and interpreting each law can be time-consuming and frustrating, even if you are in charge of compliance for just one location. And while certain local laws for larger cities, like the Seattle minimum wage ordinance, have made national headlines, other laws are going to require research.

Don’t take my word for it. Ask yourself:

How do you find out about the updates happening in smaller cities, like East Orange, New Jersey or Emeryville, California?

As mentioned before, you can research and attempt to interpret the laws online. But don’t forget, tracking and updating state and federal labor law posters as well as local compliance posters for several locations is a tremendous amount of work that would take up a lot of time and energy.

Given how difficult it is to track local laws, understand their posting requirements, and figure out if and when the notices need to be updated, it makes a lot of sense to rely on a trustworthy labor law compliance company like Poster Compliance Center for your local labor law posters. Here are just a few reasons why this could benefit your business.

The research team at PCC finds and tracks every potential local, state, and federal labor law.

They’ll investigate to see which compliance posters are mandatory and what specific posting requirements are needed.